


Trespassing at the Old No. 4 Barn

by Falke



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-08 08:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: On the Hopps farm, one building has fallen to disrepair and neglect, but to this day no one has knocked it down.Maybe that's for a reason.A ghost story featuring the arctic fox triplets.





	1. Chapter 1

Fall on a working farm was more intense than Callie had expected. In a good way.

She knew from the moment they'd stepped off the train, and the chill snap to the air had wrapped around her snout and stayed there. The sun was still sinking in the evening sky, touching off golden motion like fire in the dancing broadleaf trees that lined one edge of the big farmhouse plot, but there was no warmth to its thin light. She was glad for her sweater.

The wind was in their muzzles as they came up the hard-packed dirt drive. Callie caught whirls of chatter and the shrieking laughter of kits from behind the big house, and the scent of wood smoke and something rich baking in an oven.

"That has to be pumpkin pie," Sam said, from her customary place between them. Now she was so eager she was nearly skipping. "I told you we'd get here in time."

"They way Judy told it, there isn't really a dinnertime," Callie said. They came around the edge of the house, and the scope of the festivities spread out in front of them like a postcard. "There's way too many mammals here for that."

"How big is her family again?" Jules asked. She put an absent paw forward to stop Sam from rushing out into it right away.

This couldn't be all Hopps rabbits - not that there weren't an intimidating number of long ears out there, gathered in front of the facing doors of open barns and scattered around the huge backyard. Callie saw badgers, too, and possums; marmots and shrews and mice. There were goats, and a hedgehog, and a pair of old, graying wolves. She even saw another fox, a red fox in a big white apron, holding court over excited kits at one end of the patio and pulling a pie out of a stone hearth.

"Do you see Judy?" she asked, scanning the gathering even though from here it was sure to be hopeless. There had to be close to a hundred rabbits milling around.

"I sent her the message," Sam said.

"Did she send anything back?" Jules asked.

"I didn't check yet," Sam said. She was busy pointing out the long row of jack-o-lanterns, stacked on the hay bales at the edge of the densest stand of corn. "Look at all those!"

Callie looked - but not before she caught Jules' eye, and saw her knowing grin. Sam's enthusiasm was even more contagious than usual.

Jules was already fascinated, too, even if her curiosity was a little more reserved than Sam's. Callie was just happy they'd finally found the time to take Judy up on her offer. To hear her and Nick tell it, this was Harvest party to end all Harvest parties. And Callie would be glad to spend it with friends. It promised to be less scary than being out on their own, chasing old ghost stories.

"Callie! Hey, Jules, over here!"

They turned when they heard Judy's voice. She was coming up behind them from the house, lugging a basket full of tightly rolled blankets.

"Judy!" Sam darted forward.

"Hi, Sam," She laughed into the hug. "Hi, guys. How was the trip in?"

"Packed," Jules said. "Good call about getting to Central Station early."

"Nick and I were going to come out to the stop here, but we got busy setting tables for everyone."

"Where is he?" Sam asked.

"Still on the patio, helping out," Judy said. She bent down to pick up her basket. "Come on, this way. Are you hungry? We can get you some dinner while it's still light out."

"And pie?" Sam asked.

Judy laughed again. "Of course pie. I don't think we're ever going to run out."

She led them through the throngs of mammals, past the stacks of haybales that marked the entrance to the family's famous corn maze and toward the broad cobbled patio at the back of the house.

Here, a long firepit radiated warmth from its coals, where mammals tended to everything from big bubbling pots to skewers of fresh vegetables nestled right in among the embers. Long trestle tables groaned under the weight of a potluck fit for hundreds. Judy helped them collect plates from the tall stacks.

"There's Harvest salad - that's with walnuts and cheese - and four different kinds of stew, spicy corn chili, fruit salad." She smiled even wider at their expressions. "I think there's protein further down, too. The Marls brought eggs, if you'd like."

"Whoa." Sam had caught sight of the desserts, which had a table to themselves. Callie suspected she'd get a good sugar rush just standing downwind here. "You could open a bakery with all of this."

"You said it." Judy's eyes twinkled. "Remind me to introduce you to Gideon Grey when we get a minute. If you're only going to eat one slice of pie, make sure it's something of his."

"Just one?"

Callie wanted to sample everything, too, but she only had so many paws. She limited herself to a bowl each of stew and salad, and they went to find seats.

Nick was near the end of one of the tables with a big tray, leaning in over the waving ears of several young rabbits to distribute steaming mugs of something sweet and rich-smelling. He kept having to dodge out of the way as, one by one, they took their treats and hopped off the bench seats to rush off somewhere else.

When he saw them, he gave up and put the tray down on the table so the rest of the throng could pounce on it.

"Look who made it! Hi, you three."

"Hi, Nick." They said it all together, falling right into the pattern from old times. Sam had already slid onto her seat, so Jules took the honors this time and went around the table to hug him hello for them.

"What's this?" He asked.

"Tea, as if you have to ask." Jules shucked her canvas backpack and showed him the enamel camp cups that had clanked together under his arm. "Enough to share."

"Oh, the _good_ stuff."

Jules showed the snarky grin right back at him - but she also took a mug from the tray on the table, too, before she went to sit. If there was one thing she relaxed her Earl Grey snobbery for, it was the Hopps' spiced cider.

As they ate, two more rabbit kits ran up to the end of the table. One of them was wobbling under the weight of a huge glass jar with a wire-latched lid, which she tipped up onto the table. Judy reached out to steady it as it rattled.

"_Careful,_ Winter."

"Sorry."

She and her companion clambered up to stand on the bench next to it. Their eyes went wide when they saw three arctic vixens peering right back down at them from all sides.

"Are you ghosts?" the smaller of the two asked. The first - her sister? Friend? - scowled back at her.

_"Bailey!"_ Judy said. "Mind your manners. These are friends of mine and Nick's. And they're snow foxes, not ghosts."

Jules hid her smile behind her mug. "To be fair, Sam looks like a ghost right now."

Sam peered down at her flowy poncho. It was ash-grey, just a shade darker than the mottling of her winter coat coming in. "I guess I do, kind of."

Judy pointed in turn. "This is Callie, and Sam and Jules. Say hello."

"I'm Winter," the first rabbit said.

The second stayed put behind her, and stayed quiet.

"And that's Bailey," Judy finished for her. "Sorry - she's never seen this many guests before."

"Or many that are quite so similar," Nick added.

"Good to meet you." Callie kept most of the teeth out of her smile, mindful of Bailey's naked caution. "What do you have there?"

"A Watcher trap."

"A what?"

"Oh, yeah." Nick smiled, and nodded encouragement down to the little rabbit. "Tell them about the stories, Winter."

"At Harvest, the Watchers come out," Winter said. "In the fields. And in the maze, too, I think. I need to catch one."

Jules put her mug down and shivered. "Not more ghost stories."

"Yes more ghost stories!" Sam said. Then she turned her disbelief on Nick. "But - you tell them to kits?"

Nick shrugged and eyed Judy, next to him. "It is Harvest."

Jules tilted her head. "Your last Harvest ghost story nearly gave me a heart attack, you know. Sam, too."

Sam stuck her tongue out. "Says you. I wasn't that scared." She considered. "I don't think."

Callie hadn't forgotten their adventure, either. Old Ballenger Foundry was haunted, the story went - and she and the others had recklessly gone to investigate for themselves. She would never forget the sensation of being watched from somewhere up in the dark reaches of the abandoned factory.

Nor, for that matter, would she forget the awful machinery that they all swore had ground to life and tried to swallow them. She felt a prickling at the nape of her neck, at the thought of such a friendly setting as Judy's farm having dark secrets of its own.

"They're not spirits of the dead, or anything," Judy said. "More like... blobs. Little floating specters."

Winter pulled her ears down and made a face, as if to demonstrate.

"And they don't do anything. They just watch," Nick added. "Hence the name."

"The story says if you sneak out of bed during Harvest, they'll get you," Judy went on. "But that's to help keep the more, ah, hyperactive among us corralled and out from underfoot when it gets late. Really I've only ever seen them at the edges of the property."

"You've seen them?" Sam demanded, leaning forward. Bailey, next to Winter, jumped at the interjection. Callie thought about nudging Sam to tone it down, but she knew it would do no good.

Both Judy and Nick nodded, entirely solemn.

"Since I was a kit. Some of my family swears they've seen them in the maze too," Judy said. "But for me it's always been the edge of the fields."

Nick shifted in his seat, now doing a poor job of suppressing his smile. "Though it's not clear what will happen to them if the boundaries of the farm were to expand, or shrink," he said. "It's a bit of an inconsistency. _Ow!_"

Judy had elbowed him in the ribs. Her ear twisted again. "They're always there. You've seen them. You know."

"Yeah."

"I saw one," Winter said. "Last year."

They all looked at her. She patted her jar. "But Bailey didn't. That's why we have to catch one. So she can see too."

Bailey nodded, still mute.

"Makes sense to me," Sam said.

"Yeah, it would." Jules had flattened her ears.

Callie reached over next to her and squeezed her paw. The way Judy and Nick were leaning into it... It had to be just a story, for the kits' sake, she told herself. There was no way a family this large, with so many little ones about, would let something truly dangerous go on.

Right?

\---

Sam certainly didn't think so. While they finished their excellent food, she listened with rapt ears as Winter detailed her plan to go out hunting. It was, Callie determined, fairly simple: chase down a Watcher, prevent it from disappearing into thin air (how, was never made quite clear) and catch it in the jar.

By the end of it Sam was bobbing with excitement again.

"I want to come help!" She looked up at the rapidly falling dusk. "But how far is it to the edge of the fields?"

"About a mile, the short way," Judy said. She was smiling at her little sister while she collected bowls and silverware to take to the washing station. "And if I'm right, Uncle Gerry might even give you a ride out there, yeah?"

Bailey gasped and clapped her paws. "Hayride, hayride!"

"Hayride?" Sam asked, all alert ears.

Bailey stopped, and simply nodded again.

"I'll go ask," Winter said. She scooped up her big jar and raced off toward the barns, with Bailey fast behind her. Sam got up as if to follow them, which Callie wasn't sure would be a good idea, but instead of going off into the unknown she went in the direction of the dessert tables.

"Guess we had that decided for us," Callie said. "Your sisters - they won't mind, will they? Once Sam gets the idea in her head-"

"Winter will love the help," Judy reassured her. "And Bailey will come around too. She likes everyone Winter likes, eventually."

"As long as she doesn't get it in her head to explore this barn herself," Jules grumbled, now that they were out of earshot of the little ones - and Sam, too. "You made it sound so real."

"Well it's not fake," Nick said. He balanced the too-small mug on its edge with one pawpad and looked off into the distance, over the steely sky of the fields. "As far as I can tell, anyway. I don't get it, either, to be honest. Judy talked about how her brothers used to wire up one of the old barns so it looked all spooky. That's what I thought it was."

Jules tilted her head up at him. _"Thought."_

"Until I saw one for myself."

"And here I thought you were putting it on for the kits."

"It's Harvest, Jules." Callie grabbed her paw again. "It wouldn't be Harvest without a good scare. But think about it. They wouldn't put those kits in danger." She eyed Nick. "You wouldn't let it happen. Judy, either."

"No, I don't think so," he agreed. "The Watchers put your fur up, yeah. But they don't do anything else. You can't even get close to them, much as Winter might want to."

"Yeah, I suppose." Jules nudged her stretchy balaclava a bit tighter in the collar of her vest. "It's just... what if she's right?"

"What, and we all see a ghost?" Callie got up and pulled her friend up to her feet. "We'll all be here this time. No getting separated."

"You promise?" she asked. Nick laughed.

"Promise." Callie nodded. "Now let's go, before Sam tries to smuggle an entire pie out there with her."


	2. Chapter 2

They went past the row of leering jack-o-lanterns, and past the crackling fire barrels in front of the big red doors of the main barn. The smaller one in its shadow was still larger than Callie's entire apartment building. It had the doors ajar and lights on, too, spilling an inviting warmth out onto the drive.

Inside was a stubby blue farm vehicle with oversize wheels and a soft-top cab. By contrast, the big wooden trailer it was pulling looked like something stuck in time. Its wood frame full of burlap decking and the requisite haybales, and the posts on its leading corners were hung with actual candles, flickering in glass lanterns.

Sam was already here, with Judy and the kits. There were two old bucks with them, one of them kneeling down to take careful note of Winter's instructions.

"Aha." He straightened when Callie and the others approached. "Are these the rest of your new friends?"

Bailey looked up at them. Her eyes were still a little wide. But Winter nodded yes.

"Good to meet you, ladies. I'm Gerry. Great-Uncle Gerry, to these little rascals." He shook their paws hello. "And your driver for the evening."

Callie decided she liked him.

"We waiting on anyone else, Jude?" he was counting ears.

"No, we're on Winter's special mission this time. And can we take the long route? These three have never been to the farm before."

"Well, of course," he said, and winked. "There's no better place to see the Watchers. Mount up! We'll start whenever you're ready."

Sam scrambled aboard the trailer right along with the kits and their jar. Judy had collected a couple more big blankets from somewhere. She passed one over to Callie as she and Nick climbed on.

The trailer was wider - and even cozier - than it looked. The bales were stacked one and two high all around the edges, for tiers of seating, and in the middle was another giant lantern, like a glass cage around a bundle of old candles that had all melted down into a single mass. The glow lit up the whole interior. Nick's red tail looked like a fire of its own, and Sam, who was already claiming a spot next to Winter in the corner, now looked less like a ghost and more like a cloud in a golden sunset.

Judy waved to Gerry and his companion in the tractor cab, and with a slight lurch that set the candle flames wobbling they were off. They watched the whole procession of the Harvest party as they wound through the yards and drive, returning the waves of the mammals they passed. Then they were out onto the main track that led into the darkening fields.

This was more what Callie had expected from a farm at Harvest - endless rushing, waving corn and wheat; wind bringing the cold back in over the plain; and a sunset like a clutter of red splinters behind the thicket of bare trees to the west. She could see their breath in the last of its light. The murmur of the party had faded, and she didn't hear anything more of the electric tractor towing them than the soft crunch of its wheels over the gravel and straw. The metal fittings of the lanterns clacked quietly around their flames, snapping in the wind.

"Going to be a good night to hunt Watchers," Nick told Winter. He pointed back the way they'd come. "Here comes the moon."

They all turned to look. Sam gasped.

"It's huge!"

"The sign of a good Harvest," Judy said. "The bigger it looks, the better the crops are supposed to be."

"Those must be great crops, then." Sam closed one eye and held her paws out to encircle it. It was nearly the width of the big barn from here.

"When will you collect it?" Callie asked.

"Most of it's already in," Judy said.

"What about all this?" Jules waved at the stalks on either side of them. "It looks like it goes on forever."

"These are just the segments closest to the path," Gerry put in from ahead of them. He'd turned one ear to listen. "We keep those up until last to help with dust from the rigs going back and forth. It dead-end ups here at the lake."

The path ahead of them looked no different, to Callie's untrained eyes. They were winding around a slight curve to the north, where the track narrowed a bit and the corn stopped abruptly. Something twinkled through the last of its gaps.

"Is that the edge of the farm?" she asked.

"No." Winter spread her paws wide. "That's the lake. Watchers don't go there."

"Because the edge of the farm is on the other side?" Sam had craned to look. "Can Watchers not cross water?"

"I don't know." Winter frowned at Bailey, who shrugged. "I think they can. They can cross anything."

"What about salt? I heard salt stops ghosts."

And they were off, debating the finer points of ghost hunting and local mythology. Callie smiled and leaned back against the hay to let it wash over her.

Next to her, Jules stretched out to keep her feet warm by the candles. Her eyes were still on the rustling corn as it passed, but Callie could tell she was keeping more than a little attention on Sam's discussion, too. She reached out for her.

"You okay?"

"My coat's not in yet."

"We can fix that." With the sun now long gone, it was altogether chillier now than their sojourn down Grass Route had been. Countryside cold was unforgiving. Maybe it was the wide open sky, without clouds or tall buildings in the way to keep the night air from whisking the warmth away into the darkness.

But they'd come prepared for that part. Jules had her balaclava, and they had the lantern, and the tea they'd brought, and the big knit blanket they could share. Judy and Nick were wrapped up in striped fleece, flecked in loose hay, with one steaming mug to go between them. They set a good example. Or maybe a bad one, depending on how much the kits would pick up. Nick caught Callie's eye and winked.

"Look at those two," Callie said. She kept her voice low enough that even rabbit ears wouldn't pick up on it. "They've got the right idea."

"Naughty." She watched with something guilty as Nick held the mug so Judy could drink from it. They'd all had a sweet spot for Nick once upon a time, and in Jules' case it had died pretty hard. But now she had Callie's paw. "Won't the kits notice?"

"I don't think they're likely to care." Callie squeezed her back. "But we don't have to risk it."

"No, I want to." Jules scooted over far enough so they could share the haybale. "Harvest is for being reckless, right?"

She poured tea into another one of her mugs and Callie wrangled the blanket. It would wrap both of them up warm, with room for Sam when she inevitably decided she wanted in on the fun.

For now, of course, she was busy regaling the kits with an overwrought version of their experience at Ballenger. Callie was sure they hadn't encountered - or even imagined - an active smeltery like she was describing. Just chains. Chains, and dragging...

Beside her, Jules must have been thinking the same thing. She shivered against the cold. Callie leaned against her under their blanket and passed her the drink, and they listened.

"...And we made it out the doors just in time. There was a big boom, like the whole factory had fallen into the hole in the basement-"

"Did you see the ghosts?" Bailey demanded.

"No!" Sam deflated in the chill wind for a moment. "We only felt it... Like little mammals up in the rafters could see us. _Watching!_"

The kits shrieked, right on cue.

_"I know!"_ Sam said. She shivered. "Ooh, It made my fur stand on end just thinking about it again."

"Nice," Nick said.

"They are like Watchers!" Bailey said. She looked to Winter for confirmation. "I bet."

"Yeah." Winter was entirely serious. "Next time, you should catch one."

Sam finally settled down again, next to Callie, and grabbed at her blanketed arm. "Oh, I'll let you do it. I'm way too scared to go back there."

Their warm perch of hay and candlelight rolled over the scattering gravel of the the end of the road and below them, the farm's freshwater lake spread out, glinting in the shine of the moon. They'd left the crops behind and now the wind rushed in over the water, pushing waves around and making the reeds that grew thick at the near edge hiss. Callie smelled rich shore mud.

Gerry slowed them down and leaned back over the trailer hitch to wave down Winter's attention. "Coming up on the northern boundary," he said. "You're in charge, miss scientist. Do you think we should stop here?"

She left her jar long enough to stand on one of the haybales and look out. Her ears swayed in the wind. "No," she said. "Keep going."

Callie looked ahead. Further along this edge of the lake would bring them down a rare ridge of untreated plain and exposed rock to the same stand of wiry trees they'd seen the sun set behind earlier. Now, with the light gone, it was an inscrutable gloom of twisted scruboak branches and silvery fallen leaves. A dance of mist curled around some of the distant trunks, picking up the cooling blue of the moonlight.

And as she squinted at the scene she felt a tickle of a deeper foreboding than even ghost stories and memories of Ballenger should have been able to bring up. The trees stood between them and something else, she thought, and this time it wasn't the warmth of a sunset.

The others felt it, too, or at least felt her reaction. Jules tightened up on her paw under the blanket, and Sam pressed herself closer. The kits clambered over to the leading hay perch, to better see what was coming.

Callie pulled her attention away from the trees, and met Bailey's impossibly serious gaze.

"What's down there?" she asked.

"The old barn," Winter said.

\---

In hushed tones, and with support from Judy where they weren't old enough to have all the details, Winter and Bailey told them the story of the old Hopps No. 4 Barn.

In the earliest days, it had been where the first generations of the family to work the farm stored the crops they brought into the field. Then it became a loading barn, for trucks that came up the old path, and then an equipment storage shed for seasonal gear.

"But that was Hoppses used just our paws," Winter said. "Now-"

"It's where the Watchers go!" Bailey finished.

"A ghost infestation," Jules muttered. "If you're not using it anymore, why not just tear it down?"

"It's not hurting anybody," Judy said, where she was curled up in the sweep of Nick's tail.

Nick grinned down at her. "And around here ghost infestations come in useful."

"That, too."

"What happened to the first three?" Sam asked. She swallowed. "Nothing _bad_, I hope."

"Well, it was called the number two barn when my family first moved here," Judy said. "Someone rebuilt it before we did."

"My grandparents took it down to the studs and refinished it, back when they expanded the farm to its current boundaries," Gerry put in from the driver's seat. He turned back toward them. "And then we rebuilt it again when we needed a gear dump for all our new tools, back when we stopped doing everything by paw."

"But no one's-" Jules shot a look at the kits. "Um. _Expired_ there? Or gotten hurt?"

"Or summoned demons?" Sam added. She hooked her claws and gave Jules a toothy canine smile when she scowled at her. The kits' eyes were wide again, taking in their antics.

"Apart from the occasional cut ear or sprained ankle, no." Gerry considered. "Least as far as I know."

But he was towing the wagon with seeming care now all the same, as they came the closest yet to the sentinel trees. Callie could see now they were part of a spur off the main forest. Somewhere in its dark recesses was the Silver River, but for now it was as good as an impassable wall on that side of the world, rushing with dead branches in the wind. When she squinted, she thought she could see the rare, faint glint of some sort of fireflies, flitting between the trunks.

"Do Watchers go in the forest?"

"Oh, yes," Judy said. "Our working theory when I was a kit was that was how they got around and visited their friends on other farms."

Jules had her own paws hooked over the side of the wagon, squinting into the dark. "What did you see?"

"Little glows. Like fireflies."

Sam and the kits piled up to see for themselves, and they spent the next minutes pointing them out each time they saw the flash.

But they were coming to the edge of the scarp, and the trees were thinning. Instead of impenetrable darkness, now there was another moonlit field on the other side.

It was unused. Wild-looking. And in the near center was a half-collapsed wooden barn, positively wreathed in persistent mist.

Callie's thrill came back even harder, stirring her hackles and the nape of her neck. She felt her friends tense. Sam gave a little squeak.

Beside her, Jules' ears were back. "Is that the place?"

"That's the place," Judy said. "Uncle Gerry, stop here."

There was no motor to kill, but once the wheels of the trailer stopped crunching over the field the sound of the night came in to fill the absence even louder than before. Wind brought the rattle and creak of the forest out of the dark and rushed against their ears. Callie strained, waiting to hear some noise from the barn below them in the wash that might confirm the suspicion and suspense.

It stayed silent, as if reluctant to give up its secrets.

Only the tracks at the sagging old doors still stood out. The rest of the paths around it were worn away with age, getting reclaimed by the vigorous grasses and sage. They looked to have once lead back up the gentle hill, toward the main road and the soft orange points of the main farmhouses and barns. Callie thought for a moment that she might like to be back there instead, in the warmth of the patio and the innocent safety of the throng of happy mammals, with nothing worse than jack-o-lanterns to scare them.

But if she had been there, she wouldn't be out here, to keep the others company. That was important right now, too. She and Sam and Jules were pressed tight together under their blanket. The kits were silent and wide-eyed, keyed up to the foxes' reactions and surely waiting themselves for any sign of ghosts. Nick and Judy looked wary, and even Gerry and his friend seemed to be keeping an ear out for trouble.

He saw Callie looking at him.

"Best to walk it from here," he said. "Watchers don't like our machines, it seems. Not even the quiet electric ones."

Callie kept waiting for him to wink, or something. But he seemed as serious as Winter, who was now leading the way off the end of the trailer, oversize jar in paw.

They had to leave the blankets, and the warmth of the candles. Jules lingered over the steam of her tea, jealous as ever and loath to leave it behind. Sam shifted from foot to foot on the cold ground, with her tail wrapped around her legs.

"Now what?" She peered down at Winter. "Did you say the Watchers lived there?"

Winter fiddled with the wire clasp on the container and nodded her head. "I think so."

"Yeah," Bailey added. "That's why we keep it. So they can have a house too."

"I wonder which party is trespassing, then," Nick muttered.

Judy - and Jules - rolled their eyes.

"What are you going to do?" Judy knelt by her little sisters. "It's dark down there, and we're a long way from the house. What's your plan?"

"Stay together," Winter said. She stepped closer to Bailey to illustrate. "And-"

"And answer if you call us," Bailey finished.

Judy ruffled her headfur. "Good job. Ready?"


	3. Chapter 3

They crept down the slope into the thick of the field. The kits were in front. Sam was anxious to keep up and kept pulling at Jules, who refused to let go of her paw.

"Oh no you don't," she said, when Sam turned her best pout on her. "If I let you go you'll disappear again."

"Will not," Sam said. "I learned my lesson."

"Humor me, then?" Jules peered out at the building ahead of them. The wind that rushed through the low grasses around them did nothing to stir the mist that pooled out around the old siding. "_Ooh,_ It's bad enough that we're going toward the fog."

And following two kits into it, on top of that. They had seemed somewhat spooked by Callie and her friends before, but now Winter appeared fearless, padding straight down the remains of the old road. Bailey was tagged close, staring around with wider eyes - but she hadn't hesitated, either. Every so often she would turn to make sure they were following, and silently beckon them to come along.

Callie and the others had no choice but to keep up. Nick and Judy were somewhere behind them, she sensed, taking their time.

The road was old and cracked, scored with deep tracks where countless wheels had worn down the limestone and gravel into fine dust. How long had it been? Decades, Gerry had said. But it felt somehow older.

Up close, the barn did, too - a hundred years older. Enough of the moonlight made it through the mist to show weather-warped boards pulling free of rusted nails. There was a window frame built into one side; its glass was long gone and the interior through it was lost to total blackness.

And the doors reminded Callie way too much of old Ballenger. They were tall; ajar and out of true as the building slowly gave up its fight with gravity. Through the yawning opening she could make out the posts and beams of an old hayloft until they, too, vanished into the dark. Leaves had blown in from somewhere; skittering in piles against the walls as the breeze stirred them.

"We're not going in there," Jules muttered. "Right?"

"No." Callie pointed to where even the kits gave the doors a wide berth. "We don't want Sam getting lost again."

"Hey!"

_"Ssh!"_ It was Winter. She and Bailey had their ears up.

Callie squeezed Sam's paw to quiet her.

Then they heard it, too. Instead of the wind, or the rush of leaves, there was a strange muffled sound, as if from a distance, like the tumble of water over stone.

"I thought the river was back in the forest," Sam whispered. She turned to look back up the hill. "Judy, is-" She stopped. "Judy?"

Ahead of them, the kits started. Something was moving in the dark of the old barn. It glided through the hazy shaft of moonlight, so insubstantial that it might have been the mist.

But all the mist was drifting the other way.

One of the kits squeaked in surprise and excitement, and Jules seized Callie's paw again.

_"Oh, no."_

"What?" Sam whipped back around. "What did you see?"

"I don't know," Callie said. "Winter, don't go in there."

"What is that?" Jules demanded.

But even as she asked, the sound faded again.

"Was it a Watcher?"

"I don't _know_, Sam! It's gone now, too."

"Judy?" Sam called. The fog swallowed it, or that was how it seemed to Callie. "Nick? Where are you?"

It might have been Nick's voice in reply, from back around the far side of the barn. Callie was watching the kits, whose ears were sharper, trying to look where they looked before anything else could happen. They were still in the lead. They were the ones creeping around the corner, and so Callie had to follow.

It was even darker here. The lee of the barn was out of the wind, and out of the moonlight, too. Some old piece of farm machinery was going to rust in its shelter. An axle had snapped and left the big metal wheels at strange angles. Behind it were the skeletal forms of the few stripped trees, poking up like claws into the moonlight. The little yellow leaves they'd carried littered the ground like a carpet.

And though she couldn't see anything else, the fur on Callie's neck was standing up. In the deepest gloom under the bulk of the barn wall, part of the forbidding shadows seemed even deeper than the rest.

Some of that formless nothing drifted against the breeze, and Callie got an eerie, unmistakable impression of something looking away from them, out over the fields toward the lights of Harvest.

Jules' claws got into her so hard they hurt.

Something was watching. And if it only turned around, it would be watching them, too.

Sam was stiff with fright. "Callie-"

They all heard it. Like water rushing over rocks, somewhere deep beneath them. Somewhere behind them.

They turned, and in the dust and leaves behind them they got their first good look at a Watcher.

It had no shape. It was just a pillar of blue-black _nothingness_, gliding out of the mist and soaking up the moonlight like a sponge. It didn't seem to notice them, the foxes and the kits frozen in fear and surprise in the shadows.

But it had eyes. Or points of glimmering bronze light where a mammal would have had eyes. Even with its attention fixed somewhere else, half-turned away from them and gliding its unconcerned way up the decaying path, Callie was sure of what she saw. She felt the others shiver, too, when they all realized at once that the fireflies they'd been watching out in the forest had probably been watching back.

"What are they?" Jules whispered.

_"Watchers!"_ Bailey said.

Winter's voice was a hushed thrill, but less frightened and more like a scientist, like she was trying not to scare a bird away. "_Two_ Watchers!"

_"Aah!"_ Sam had no such compunction. "Callie, look out!"

Callie whirled again, to see that the first Watcher had turned its gaze from the farm and was looking straight at them. Jules froze, in the middle of hissing something terrified.

It was coming closer.

It had no feet, no legs - the mist where they would have been didn't _end_ \- but it didn't need them. It was sliding out of the shadows, unblinking and focused.

Sam was yelling for Nick, or Judy. Jules was backing away, pulling at her to no avail. Callie knew she couldn't follow. She couldn't leave the kits. It was just them out here. She reached down to shepherd them behind her, for all the good it would do.

She had Bailey safe - had met her paw halfway, even - but Winter wasn't there.

Instead, she had run forward, with her big jar in both paws, its lid open and clacking against its wire latch.

"Winter!" Callie made it two steps forward. "Winter, _stop!_"

She didn't, of course. The Watcher did, and Callie swore she saw its ambery eyes brighten as little Winter came closer. The rushing water changed its tone, got even deeper.

And then in the space of two seconds, as Winter came up on it, it sank into the mist wreathing over the ground and vanished.

Winter, clearly expecting to encounter something with some kind of weight to it, stumbled and fell in the leaves. Her jar bounced out of her paws and rolled away in the shadows, making a surprising amount of noise.

Because the sound of the water had faded away. The moonlight was picking out undisturbed mist, as if there had never been anything else. The Watcher was gone. It was just living, breathing mammals out here now, and one of them was picking herself up out of the dirt.

Callie found she could move her paws again. Fear was rapidly cooling to the buzz of relief, and of concern. She and Bailey were the only ones who had seen Winter's fall, and now they both rushed to go help. The others followed - they weren't about to let anyone leave them alone now.

"Winter!" Bailey got to her first, scrambling on sure little paws in the slippery leaves, breathless more from the adrenaline of the encounter than anything. "Are you okay?" She hiccuped. "I saw it! It was just like you said."

"Yeah." Winter was brushing the twigs and leaves out of her fur. She cast around for her missing jar, and when Callie and the others ran up to help her up she looked crestfallen. "Yeah. But my trap broke."

"But where did it _go?_" Sam demanded. "I saw it too! I saw both of them! If they're really real, where did they go?"

"Down in the ground," Winter said.

"Yeah!" Bailey nodded agreement.

"Probably because you're being so loud." Jules was holding onto Sam's tail, to keep her from darting off in pursuit. "Winter said they were harmless, but if you keep it up you're going to make them change their minds."

"So you saw it, too? Those orange eyes?"

"I saw _something_. And- yeah." Jules shivered and gathered Sam into a proper hug next to her. "I think it saw us, too. Just like Ballenger."

"It's okay," Bailey told her. "It was a fraidy ghost. I saw! It ran away from Winter."

"I know," Sam said.

"I bet it thinks you're ghosts, too."

That made Sam giggle breathlessly, and even Jules smiled a bit. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Bailey nodded at Winter. "That's why it didn't come back yet."

_Yet._ Callie was mostly sure the kits didn't see how that made Jules lay her ears back again, or how it made her get an even firmer grip on Sam's bushed out tail.

"Maybe we should go back to the tractor then, Callie?"


	4. Chapter 4

They trooped back up the hill, with the kits once again in the lead, but this time sticking closer to the others. Callie kept an ear on them, but neither of them seemed any worse for wear after their brush with the supernatural. Winter still had her jar, even though its lid clasp was bent and twisted out of line. They were talking in animated whispers. From what Callie could catch they were comparing the adventure to earlier sightings.

Her friends were well enough, too, even if recovering would probably take longer for them. Jules was busy refusing Sam's proposal to come back out tomorrow night, with more supplies.

Callie jumped, when a tall figure loomed out of the fog to their left. But as soon as she'd started, she relaxed. She could hear paws in the scattered straw, and then see the familiar sharp ears of Nick, with Judy beside him.

"There you are," Judy said. "We heard you calling, but we couldn't find you in this fog. Is everything okay?"

_"We saw a Watcher!"_ Sam and Bailey said in unison.

"And Winter took a fall trying to catch one," Callie said.

"Oh, no," Judy said.

"She said she was all right."

Nick crouched down to Winter's level. "Maybe next time, huh? You okay?"

"It went in the ground." Winter pressed her jar into his paws. "I was so close. Can you help fix my trap?"

"If I can't, I bet Joe sure can," Nick told her.

"Okay."

"But hot drinks first, all right?" Judy took the jar so Nick could help the kits back into the waiting trailer. "No more chasing Watchers in the dark tonight."

"But what about the maze?" Winter protested.

Sam looked around, ears up. "Yeah, what _about_ the maze?"

"Cider first." Judy was adamant. She saw the kits safely perched back on their hay bales and then came back to smile at to Callie.

"Thank you for looking after them." She played with the edge of one ear. "They're both magnets for trouble. I just- didn't think it would be that fast. Sorry."

"It wasn't you, was it?" Callie asked. "Doing... whatever that was with the Watchers? Scaring all of us?"

Judy shook her head, eyes wide. "We were out looking for them, just like you. Promise."

"Well." Nick leaned in so he could raise his eyebrows at Callie. "_I_ was looking for a quiet spot."

"Hush, you." Judy's ears actually flushed pink in the lanternlight and she scowled at their grins. "The rest of us were out looking for Watchers. But this time they found you three first, and the kits. They're weird like that."

And the three of them had seen enough for everyone, Callie thought. But at least this time it hadn't led to a terrified flight through the Grass Route overgrowth. Aside from a couple scuffed knees and a banged-up Watcher trap, none of them had been hurt.

Jules still looked like she was trying to square that, of course. She was leaning against the open end of the hay trailer, twisting the cap to her thermos open and shaking her resigned snout at Sam, who was waving her paws and helping Winter embellish the story in real time for Gerry.

Callie went over to her, as Judy got around getting them ready to roll again.

"She'll never shut up about this one," Jules said.

"Oh, let her have her fun." Callie got her seat next to her friend against the hay and nudged her. "Bailey said they were probably going to leave us alone anyway, remember?"

"Do you believe her?"

Callie smiled at her. "Do you?"

"It really was watching," she said. "Even more than at Ballenger. I don't know how anyone would fake something so strong." Jules looked back over her shoulder at the barn, sitting as misty as ever in the center of the field, and drew her tail closer around herself. "Not that I'm looking to wait around and test the idea again."

Gerry got the trailer underway, tracing a wide loop around the edge of the field and toward the eastern road. They arranged their blanket again so they could watch the scene recede into the dark.

Watch very closely, Callie noticed.

"You can say you had fun, too, you know." she prodded her friend under the blanket. "I won't tell Sam."

"Fine." Jules finally gave up and nodded. "But you get to put your foot down with her if she wants to go hunting Watchers when we get back. You know we can't trust her judgement about rickety old buildings."

"Right."

"Um. Miss ghost?"

They turned. Bailey had crossed the trailer to their side, cupping slightly unsteady paws around a steaming mug.

"Do you want some cider, too?" She held it up to Jules. "Winter says it will help you not be scared anymore."

Jules was too scandalized for words. She reached out and took it automatically.

Bailey beamed and went back to help Winter with her jar. Callie was shaking with the effort to suppress the laugh.

Jules turned a decent attempt at murderous eyes on her. "Don't you dare."

"I won't say a word. But-" Callie nodded to it. "Are you going to drink it?"

The smile started to crack through. "Only if you help."

There was no substitute. Callie had tried various drinks back home in the years since Judy had introduced them to her family's version, but nothing she could get from a coffeeshop was sweet in the same rich, heavy way. Just a little bit was enough to warm her up from the inside out.

Jules stopped and swallowed hard. Callie felt her pulling herself closer.

"Did you burn your tongue again?"

_"Look!"_ she hissed.

Calllie followed her paw. Even shrouded in the barn's mist, they could see it clearly. There was the window they'd crept past before, as inky black and forbidding as ever. Floating in its center, with their unblinking eyes on the retreating candlelight of the wagon, were two Watchers.

_"Whoa!"_ It was Sam, right on cue. "Winter, Bailey, look!"

Everyone else crowded around now. Gerry took them even slower, so they would have more time to watch back over the field.

"I guess they just don't like company up close, huh?" Nick asked.

Judy wriggled in his lap. "I'm just glad we got to see them after all."

Bailey waved. "Bye, fraidy ghost!"

Callie heard Jules smile beside her.

One of the forms turned - or Callie was pretty sure it turned, based on what she could see of its indistinct shape - and sank out of sight.

"I think it heard you," Sam whispered, and giggled along with the kits.

Judy and Winter and the rest of them were right, Callie reminded herself: the Watchers weren't dangerous. Nobody could tell them how or why they worked, but the worst they were was spooky - even up close.

And from here, curled against her at an even safer distance, Jules was okay with that. From here, they could sit in the warm light and watch the unexplained vanish into the mist.

That was worth savoring.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/)   
[chronology](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/chronology)


End file.
